Blue Sky Factory is focused on helping marketing professionals become better marketers, through effective email marketing, social media, and mobile messaging. The Blue Sky Factory team has built its brand on world-class technology, thought leadership, and exceptional client services.

â€œThis acquisition strengthens our thought leadership, delivers proven Email+Social integration, and adds talent from the Blue Sky Factory team,â€ said WhatCounts President and Founder Allen Nance. â€œOur mission is bold, to change the marketing game through innovative technology and services. Blue Skyâ€™s team and technology map perfectly to our mission and our customers will ultimately be the winners.â€

â€œAs our team spent time with WhatCounts it become clear that joining forces would make us both stronger and better positioned to drive innovation in the email channel, and set ourselves up for success in the future.â€

WhatCounts has clearly positioned itself as the new leader in email marketing. â€œOur strategy of focusing on driving email marketing innovation through software and services is winning in the marketplace,â€ said WhatCounts Chief Operating Officer Mark Pigott. â€œOur management team is excited about integrating Blue Sky Factory into WhatCounts and continuing to deliver world-class technology and exceptional client service to our growing customer base.â€

About WhatCounts

WhatCounts, a private company founded in 2000, has a presence on four continents with email being delivered in over 35 languages. Over the last decade, WhatCounts has partnered with many of the worldâ€™s leading organizations to drive successful email marketing programs by delivering the only robust lifecycle email marketing platform in the world that can be deployed as a SaaS (software-as-a-service), a BroadcasterTM (on-premise appliance installed in clientâ€™s datacenter), or as a Managed Service (a dedicated system hosted in the WhatCountsâ€™ datacenters). WhatCountsâ€™ clients have come to rely on their dedicated account model that ensures that they always interact with a knowledgeable team. Through their campaign production services, the team designs, builds, optimizes, tests, deploys, and monitors millions of targeted email marketing programs through a full-service framework, allowing its clients to outsource the entire process. As a technology innovator, WhatCounts has always been on the leading edge of the email marketing industry. Product differentiators include fully integrated social media and fully supported video-enhanced email. WhatCounts is proudest of the return on investment realized by some customers realizing over $200 in email-driven revenue for every $1 of investment.

The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm focused on acquiring growing enterprises valued at up to $200 million (â‚¬200 million in Europe). The firm partners with strong management teams and enhances its investments through acquisitions and organic growth. Since its founding in 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 250 transactions with a total enterprise value of more than $5.4 billion/â‚¬4.4 billion. The firmâ€™s portfolio in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region includes more than 70 companies with roughly 14,000 employees. Riverside completes acquisitions smoothly thanks to $3.4 billion/â‚¬2.7 billion in assets under management, more than 195 professionals in 19 offices, and longstanding relationships with partner lenders.